CMYK New Vance teachers welcomed
When ‘following orders’ is a weak excuse
Spartans defeat Quakers, 3-1
Our Hometown, Page 2A
Opinion, Page 8A
Sports, Page 1B THURSDAY, August 27, 2009
Volume XCV, No. 200
(252) 436-2700
www.hendersondispatch.com
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NAACP collecting complaints about police By AL WHELESS and WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writers
Theodous Bryant — who told the Henderson City Council Monday he was a victim of police cruelty — is responding to the National NAACP organization’s request for such complaints from witnesses or victims. Horace P. Bullock, president of the Vance County Branch, said Bryant “is in the process” of filing a statement that will be sent to the NAACP headquarters, along with any other
complaints from the public concerning law enforcement agencies. Bullock added that reports of police misconduct or abuse affecting people of all races can be recorded by calling the branch at (252) 492-0930 or by filling out a form and leaving it at the local office at 315 S. Garnett St., second floor, Suite 208. A press release signed by Bullock stated that: “Public safety is a civil and
of our neighborhoods. “Together, we can change that. Together, we can ensure that our communities receive equal protection and are not treated unfairly by those we trust to protect us. “Tell us about what you have experienced or witnessed. The NAACP will contact the proper authorities and provide you with an answer to your concerns as soon as possible.” Accompanied by Rev. Clarence “C.J.” Dale, Bryant told
Group wants victims, witnesses to file reports human right. We count on law enforcement to provide protection and security in our communities. “However, an act of police misconduct or abuse threatens the legitimacy, fairness and effectiveness of our justice system — and contributes to the violence and victimization in many
Kennedy succumbs to cancer
Embassy Square never made cut as part of project By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
By CALVIN WOODWARD and GLEN JOHNSON Associated Press Writers
Please see KENNEDY, page 4A
Index Our Hometown . . . . . 2A Business & Farm. . . . 5A Light Side . . . . . . . . . 6A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . 8A Sports. . . . . . . . . . 1-3B Comics . . . . . . . . . . . 4B Classifieds. . . . . . . 5-7B
Weather Today Sunny
High: 92 Low: 65
Friday
Submitted photo
Wes Hight plays guitar with Brain Vacation while a student at Kerr-Vance Academy a number of years ago in Henderson.
KVA graduate seeking an ‘Appalachian high’ By AL WHELESS Daily Dispatch Writer
Wes Hight — who played guitar for a band called Brain Vacation while attending Kerr-Vance Academy — doesn’t get one while helping put on the Music On The Mountaintop Festival in Boone. The second-annual, ecologicallydriven fund-raiser will be held this Saturday at The Old Fairgrounds in the high country. Numerous groups, including several national acts, will create a blend of Americana, bluegrass, and acoustic funk and folk. Now working in management for Tellski — a golf and ski resort company in Telluride, Colo. — the 2007 graduate of Appalachian State University is spending a month back in North Carolina to assist in getting the large-scale effort to better the environment up and running. “I’m helping take care of every little detail such as alerting the media and mowing the lawns at the fairgrounds where the festival takes place,” Hight said.
“We really hope to grow this into something that will be here 50 years from now,” he added. “The idea is to raise money and give a substantial part of it to AIRE.” The acronym stands for Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy. The non-profit organization was formed to promote strong economies and healthy environments throughout Central and Southern Appalachia. Among other things, it seeks to reduce the region’s dependence on mountain-top-removal coal mining and additional non-renewable energy sources. AIRE also strives to create economically and environmentally sustainable livelihoods. Last year, a majority of the proceeds from the one-day festival went to North Carolina Green Power and the Appalachian State University Energy Center. Tickets for this Saturday’s event cost $45 for general admission and $40 for students. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to www.musiPlease see GRADUATE, page 4A
The Henderson City Council earlier this week formally closed the book on the David Street neighborhood revitalization project on the northeast side of the city. City Planner Erris Dunston said Community Development Block Grants totaling $771,049 were used to pay for acquisitions, demolitions and rehabilitations, construction Dunston of a playground and improvements to sewer and water, plus a widening and resurfacing of the street. All that is left on the to-do list is to repair a resident’s roof, Dunston said. After no one spoke in the public hearing phase of the matter, Councilman Michael Rainey led the vote for closure. Councilman Michael Inscoe said that, although he had nothing to do with the project, he would refrain from voting because he does consulting work for the Kerr-Tar Regional Council of Governments. David Street has been in the news for approximately half a decade. In February 2005, U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield and his staff saw first-hand the blight in Henderson as part of a tour of his
congressional district and before upcoming city efforts to lobby the federal government for funding. The tour covered Flint Hill and North and South Henderson. “This is crazy,” one of Butterfield’s staffers was quoted as saying while riding through the David Street area. Butterfield himself later described some parts of Henderson as resembling Third World countries, but noted nothing on the tour surprised him. In June 2005, the city received $653,000 in CDBG funding for a makeover of the David Street area. The city had asked for grant funding as far back as November 2004. David Street was back in the news last fall, when the present council in November reopened the completed project as part of a unanimous vote for what would turn out to be an unsuccessful effort to obtain a $1 million CDBG grant to help pay for a performing arts center at Embassy Square in the city center. The council amended the David Street project to create a sub area in which the performing arts center would be part of what was being called the future Embassy Square Neighborhood Facility. The city intended to use the David Street project to obtain the CDBG grant via the state Division of Community Assistance, with the non-profit Embassy Square Cultural Center Foundation to obtain $7.3 million in private funding. The foundation is the nonprofit fund-raising Please see COUNCIL, page 3A
Lynne Avenue residents call for speed bumps
T-storm High: 83 Low: 70
Details, 3A
Deaths
Please see NAACP, page 3A
Council votes end to rehab of David Street
Sen. Ted Kennedy
HYANNIS PORT, Mass. — A black shroud with a vase of white roses draped a desk in the Senate on Wednesday. There was no more shock of white hair, booming voice or pointed finger in the heat of debate. Ted Kennedy, the last of the Kennedys who fascinated the nation with their ambition, style, idealism, tragedies — and sometimes sheer recklessness — is dead at 77. With his passing, the Senate lost its dominant liberal and one of its legendary dealmakers. The nation lost what remained of “Camelot,” the already distant era of the
City Council members that he was also the victim of degrading language because of his race, and claimed that an officer physically abused his grandmother. “I feel that I’m treated unfairly,” Bryant said. “I really don’t feel safe around the Henderson police.” Also addressing the Council, Dale claimed that the mother of a man who was shot earlier this summer has been unable to
By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
A Lynne Avenue resident said 29 of his fellow Oxford residents along Lynne Willie R. Pulliam, 80 from Oakridge Avenue Lelia B. Smith, 88 to Valley View Drive are Obituaries, 4A calling for Henderson’s municipal government to install speed bumps. The resident, Jimmie Ayscue, who doubles as a Planning Board member, said a 2003 lowering of the speed limit from 35 mph
to 25 mph has not helped at all. “I don’t expect our police to sit there and monitor traffic all the time, but somebody is going to get hurt on Lynne Avenue unless we do something,” Ayscue told the City Council on Monday evening. Mayor Pete O’Geary turned the matter over to Manager Ray Griffin, who said there is a protocol for evaluations of such requests. Ayscue said the
request is in the form of a petition. Ayscue had lived along Lynne in the late 1960s before moving into a house off U.S. 158 Bypass and living there some three decades before returning to Lynne some six years ago. Ayscue said he has enjoyed living in the city again, “but I never for a day dreamed there would be as much traffic on Lynne Avenue as there is
— and I mean speeders.” “We have seen teenagers racing down Lynne Avenue, side by side,” Ayscue said, noting he has seen three cars racing behind the other at anywhere from 50-60 mph and has seen teenagers hanging out of moving vehicles. Ayscue additionally said there are several elderly residents along Lynne who back their vehicles out of their driveways and, after starting to get going on
Lynne, have other vehicles at their rear bumpers. And Ayscue said after he met every one of his neighbors about the situation, the response was, “Oh, thank goodness we’re going to finally do something.” Ayscue said he knows the “negative side” of having speed bumps. A Dispatch report in 2005 quoted Assistant City Please see LYNNE AVENUE, page 3A